The Trust for Governors Island

Welcome to Governors Island

Governors Island, a 172 acre island in the heart of New York Harbor, is only 800 yards from Lower Manhattan, and even closer to Brooklyn.

The Trust is transforming Governors Island into a destination with great public open space, as well as educational, not-for-profit, and commercial facilities. In May 2014, 30 new acres of park and public spaces including a sunny terrace, groves of hammocks, ball fields, and monumental works of art opened for public use.

The Trust has also broken ground on the Hills, the crowning feature of the new park. In addition to the completion of the new park spaces and construction of the Hills, The Trust has nearly completed its ambitious infrastructure program to ready the Island for expanded tenancy and activity.

You never know what you’ll find when you excavate on Governors Island. While trenching for new storm water outfalls, we turned up a relic from the Island’s army days. At one point, the south end of the Island was crisscrossed by a web of train tracks that connected a sea of warehouses.

The ghost of a railroad past. Comment if you know more about this relic! Image courtesy of The Trust.

This appears to be part of a train car or hand cart. The wheels were cast in Baltimore, MD. Any train buffs have thoughts on what it was? Let us know! In the meantime, we’ll keep digging as we rehabilitate the Island’s seawall and storm water system and we’ll let you know what else we find.

Map of the Governors Island railroad. Image courtesy of the National Archives, Art Audley & trainweb.org

The 2.2 mile rehabilitation of the Governors Island seawall is well underway. Major and minor efforts are ensuring that this critical part of the Island stays in place and does its job keeping the Island together. At the south end of the Island, work on a revetment to replace the original seawall is complete. The revetment is a sloped stone abutment which is better than a stone wall at handling the heavy wave action from the harbor, and will be easier to maintain over the years. In the north of the Island, the original seawall is being supported and repaired as needed to breath new life into this 120+ year old structure.

Seen here from Lima Pier, the revetment at the island’s southern tip is already doing its job. Image courtesy of the Trust.

Closer view of the revetment. Image courtesy of The Trust.

In the historic district, the original seawall is left in place and backed by an impressive concrete wall providing stability for years to come. Image courtesy of The Trust.

Governors Island continues its work to introduce potable water in 2014! The work to bring this tasty beverage to GI began last summer and is making great headway. After the tunnel was drilled under the Buttermilk Channel from Brooklyn, 2,340 feet of brand new pipe was snaked through to connect us to our NYC water supply.

A host of diggers team up to help feed the new water pipe through the carrier from GI back to Brooklyn. It only took a day to feed all ~1/2 mile of pipe through! Image courtesy of The Trust.

We have also begun t0 lay the miles of pipe needed to connect the potable water to buildings on Governors Island.

This is the conductor pipe in Brooklyn which helped guide the drill through the bedrock under the Buttermilk Channel to the island. Image Courtesy of the Trust.

The first part of Governors Island’s 2.2 mile seawall rehabilitation has begun. About 3,000 feet of the seawall will be replaced by a revetment (sloped stone construction) starting under the watchful eye of Lady Liberty near Picnic Point. The stones are huge and the work takes place when the tides are friendly, so we have a long way to go. Our dedicated crew is hard at work rain or shine. In addition to being super cool looking, the revetment and rehabilitated wall will be great for the Island. Check out our flickr album for more seawall construction pics and stay tuned for further field reports!

Last October we reported on the installation of the west lift bridge at Soissons Landing. Now she has a brand spanking new sister in the east slip. The bridge was floated in from Bayonne and is now being put through her paces of all the ups and downs required to work with the ferry boats.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

When you make your way to Governors Island from Manhattan over the weekend, take a moment to notice our new lift bridges!

Like many greats before her, Nolan Park’s brown is going grey. As part of a massive roofing project, aimed at replacing aged roofs on historic buildings, the shingle roofs on Nolan Park houses are being replaced. The roofs on these charming buildings have been replaced many times in their approximately 150 years. This time, the brown shingles are being replaced by gray that correspond to the other building in the historic district. Check out all the new roofs when you come to visit this summer.

Our final view of Governors Island looks north across the rooftops of Nolan Park. At the end of the row, you can see a new roof being added to Building 20-constructed in 1902. This spring, Building 20 will receive yet another new roof along with all its neighbors is Nolan Park.

Image Courtesy of the National Park Service

For those of you with ample screen space, please click on the image to enjoy the full panorama below.